To the Honorable the Board of Trustees of the Rhode Island Institute
for the Deaf:

GENTLEMEN:--I respectfully submit the following report for the year
ending December 31, 1895.

On January 1st, 1895, there were fifty-two pupils enrolled; twenty-nine
boys and twenty-three girls.

Six new pupils were admitted during the winter and spring, one a boy
of eighteen, who had never attended school. He is a bright, industrious
boy, anxious to learn, and will become, undoubtedly, a satisfactory student.
When these children have been allowed to remain at home until the age of
thirteen or fourteen they are slow at grasping ideas and school-room work
is irksome. As the Institute and its work is better known throughout the
State it is hoped that parents of deaf children will not neglect to avail
themselves of its advantages. We are now trying to bring to the school
a pupil of sixteen who has never attended school.

School re-opened September 10th with fifty-three pupils, and in course
of time all returned, except one boy whose parents moved out ot the State.
Five new pupils were admitted in September and October, making eleven admitted
during the year, so that our number was increased to sixty-one, Thirty-four
boys and twenty-seven girls, the largest attendance in the history of the
school.

We opened as a boarding school January 1st, 1893, with thirty-eight
pupils.

HEALTH

The general health throughout the school has been good.

There have been colds and slight accidents occasionally, but they have
been comparatively few when we consider the number under our care.

On the 24th of November one of the pupils was taken ill with diptheria,
which was epidemic at that time. In all probability it was contracted outside
the Institute. The child was immediately taken to the hospital, which can
be completely separated from the main building. There followed but one
other case. The attendant who had charge of the patient, until a nurse
came, took the disease, but both she and the child recovered.

SCHOOL WORK

During the past year the work in the school-rooms has been very satisfactory,
but especially so the past few months.

The children take more interest in reading than ever before and they
are learning to appreciate good and instructive books.

They are interested in the history of people and of different countries,
and the teachers take an active interest in directing their reading. Such
a desire to learn must stimulate the minds of these children so that they
will advance, in all respects, faster than ever before. Carefully selected
books are frequently added to the library, and they are taught, by collecting
news items, to read the daily papers understandingly.

The teachers are provided with school papers and magazines and other
necessary helps to teach.

Our most important work is to teach the use of the English language,
speech-reading and speech. That the children may acquire the constant use
of speech, they are first taught to understand spoken language by watching
the mouths of others, not the lips alone, but the tongue,
the lips, and the expression of the face, and thus they are taught
to use speech as it is used by others. There has been a marked improvement
in deportment. The boys are more manly and the girls are more womanly.
We try to make life in the Institute as home like as possible, but of course
this can be done only to certain extent, and only by the hearty cooperation
of everybody, which, I can truly say, is given. And I would like here to
thank the teachers for the cheerful assistance they so willingly give.
Every evening some of them join the children in the sitting-rooms and take
part in their conversation and games, and on Saturday evenings they teach
the use of games that are both instructive and amusing.

CHANGES.

A few changes have taken place in the corps of teachers. Miss R. E.
Sparrow, for many years a teacher in Clarke Institution in Northampton,
Mass., succeeded Mrs. Hurd as First Assistant. As the number of pupils
increased it became necessary to add another teacher to our staff, and
Miss A. D. Ward was appointed and has charge of a class of beginners in
the Kindergarten department. Miss Townsend and Miss Ruggles were appointed
in place of Miss Burrill and Miss Smith, who did not return after the summer
vacation. Miss Gill, a teacher-in-training, assists in the class-room work
a portion of each day, and observes the work done in the class-rooms the
remaining time school is in session.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

Industrial training has received as careful attention as the intellectual
development. Printing is taught to five boys, and a small school paper,
the What Cheer, is issued twice a month.

Printing is very helpful in teaching the pupils how to use the English
language correctly.

We hope to increase the number under instruction as soon as the addition
to the school building is completed and we have more commodious quarters.

The class in Sloyd is still in charge of Mr. Almgren and the boys are
doing very commendable work. At present the boys' play-room is used as
the Sloyd room. When the new buildings are finished more boys can be added
to the class, and we hope to form a class, in Sloyd, of girls, as it has
been found practical to teach this branch of industry to them as well as
to boys.

We have an efficient shoe-maker, and four boys receive instruction on
three afternoons of each week in shoe-making.

The sewing, for the household, is done by the girls in the sitting-room,
under a teacher of experience.

The pupils are taught regular habits of order and cleanliness in the
care of their rooms and different parts of the building occupied by them.

The day before Christmas the children were made happy by a beautiful
Christmas tree laden with presents provided by contributions from Mrs.
Weeden and others.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

We acknowledge, with thanks, two pictures for the pupils' sitting-rooms,
from Miss Adeline Brown; a box of fine oranges from Mrs. Wm. Gammell; some
children's clothing from Mrs C. W. Lippitt; bric-a-brac, six water colors
and an etching from Mr. M. J. Perry; a box of periodicals from Mrs D. B.
Pond, and we thank Mrs Weeden and Mrs Wyman for collection the money, buying
and framing a large photograph of the Madonna de San Sisto, by Raphael.

Thanks are also due Mrs S. S. Durfee for clothing, and Miss Mabelle
C. Lippitt for books.

a. Drill in elements, combination and words, and reading
them from the lips.

b. Thorough review of first year work. Nouns and verbs
continued. Adjectives continued; their comparison. Pronouns as in first
year, adding myself, herself, himself, with the plurals, and the relatives
who and which. Adverbs; not, often, never, &c. Elliptical sentences;
section and picture writing; journal and letter writing, and simple stories.

This school is for the benefit of children incapicated trough deafness,
total or partial, for receiving proper instruction in common schools, and
is free to all pupils who belong in this State.

The aim of the school is to teach deaf children to use the English languague
with the spontaneity, correctness, and enjoyment of hearing children as
far as this is practicable.

"Without language there can be no thought, no reason;" and as the highest
aim of all instruction is the culture of the mental and moral nature in
man, our first effort should be to furnish the deaf with a medium through
which knowledge can be imparted and obtained. This can be done by signs,
by finger alphabet, and by speech. Our method is the latter, or oral method
by which the deaf can be educated, and at the same time furnished with
the usual and most convenient way of communication in society and in the
world at large.

It is very desirable that deaf children be sent to school at as early
an age as possible. A parent will be amply repaid for sending a child as
young as five or six years, even at some inconvenience. The Board of Trustees
are authorized to receive pupils between the ages of three and twenty years.

If a child who has learned to talk is made deaf by disease he should
immediately upon his recovery be sent to a school where his speech will
be retained, and where he will be taught to understand from the lips. In
such cases it is common to delay so long that serious loss of speech results.

Speech reading is an invaluable acquisition for those who are semi-deaf
or even hard of hearing, as well as for those congenitally or totally deaf.

Every effort should be made to encourage the child to retain words by
watching the lip motion and facial expression, or by feeling the muscular
action or the breath; but no attempt should be made to teach him the names
of the letters of the alphabet.

This school no longer exists as a day school, but has been merged into
the Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf, and will be conducted as a boarding
home and school. Application for admission should be made to the Principal
at the Institute, corner of East Avenue and Cypress Street, Providence.

Transcribers notes: All spelling and punctuation are as in the original
book.

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